Re: National Institute of Mental Health, FY2021 LHHS OWT

May 21, 2020
Treatment Advocacy Center
Prepared for the United States Senate Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies

Re: National Institute of Mental Health, FY2021 LHHS OWT

The Treatment Advocacy Center appreciates the opportunity to provide written testimony on the National Institute of Health FY2021 budget appropriations.

The Treatment Advocacy Center is a national nonprofit dedicated exclusively to eliminating barriers to the timely and effective treatment of serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Our organization promotes laws, policies and practices for the delivery of psychiatric care and supports the development of treatments for and research into factors of serious mental illness that have the potential for reducing suffering and improving lives of individuals living with these conditions.

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is the main federal government agency for research into mental illness. The NIMH was authorized through the passage of the National Mental Health Act in 1946 to better help individuals with mental health disorders through better diagnosis and treatments. With a budget of almost $2 billion in 2020, the NIMH conducts research and funds outside investigators to better understand mental illness and develop new treatments to reduce the burden these disorders have on individuals.

Unfortunately, the NIMH has a recent history of ignoring those with the most severe mental illnesses. As Treatment Advocacy Center Founder Dr. E. Fuller Torrey wrote in Psychiatric Times earlier this month:

"Congress awarded the National Institute of Mental Health an additional $98 million as part of the National Institutes of Health budget resolution in December 2019, which brings the NIMH budget to just under $2 billion and represents a 35% increase since 2015, one of the largest increases in the history of the NIMH. Yet, during the 5 years from 2015 through 2019, NIMH funded a total of 2 new drug treatment trials for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, according to clinicaltrials.gov. This contrasts with the 5-year period from 2006 through 2010 when NIMH funded 48 such trials. NIMH has thus almost entirely given up its role of evaluating drugs for the treatment of 2 disorders (emphasis added)."

In December 2019, the NIMH released a draft of their five-year strategic plan for public comment. They reported receiving more than 6,000 responses over the winter holidays, including from our organization identifying concrete examples of research initiatives the NIMH could be pursuing today to help people with serious mental illness recover and live better lives. Despite this robust response, NIMH made no substantive changes to the research goals or objectives in the final version released to the public earlier this week.

The NIMH research goals for 2020–2025 heighten the existing imbalance in NIMH research. In doing so, they offer little hope for new or better treatments for individuals who are currently afflicted with a mental illness during their lifetime, especially a serious mental illness. This failure is inexcusable given the large increase in research funding given to NIMH in recent years.

Future NIMH funding must be used to correct the existing imbalance, not worsen it, especially now that the COVID-19 pandemic has upended the mental health treatment system and will likely result in an exacerbation of symptoms in people currently affected and an increase in serious mental illnesses among Americans. Those with the most severe forms of mental illness deserve to be prioritized.

Thank you for your consideration of this request.

Sincerely,

E. Fuller Torrey, MD, Founder of the Treatment Advocacy Center and Associate Director for Research, Stanley Medical Research Institute

Michael B. Knable, DO, Board President, Treatment Advocacy Center and Medical Director, Clearview Communities

John Snook, Executive Director, Treatment Advocacy Center

Treatment Advocacy Center
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